One of the great things about travelling is the opportunity to run races in interesting new places! You never quite know what to expect! This weekend I ran the 8th Kokyo marathon in Tokyo Japan. Before you are too impressed, I should explain that in Japan the term marathon is used to refer to any race of any distance. My Kokyo marathon was 21.1 km so it was in fact a half marathon. The race instructions said the start was at a specific subway station and exit number. It was

This was the first year for the Marathon du P’tit Train du Nord. They had a marathon and a half marathon distance both of which had relatively small field caps, 1200 for the marathon and 800 for the half. The races sold out very quickly. Both races are run completely on the P’tit train du Nord, a multi-use stone dust/paved trail which was once a railway line. The trail is very similar to the rail trail which runs from Ottawa out to Carleton Place, generally straight with no r

This was our return trip to the Peak 2 Brew Relay. The six of us in our van had previously run this in 2016 as well (with an additional member – Anita – who had decided not to participate this time). The race itself is a 220+ mile relay from the top of Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid (The ‘Peak’) to the Saranac Brewery in Utica (Where they kept all the ‘Brew’). As a variation on last year, the vans had switched roles. (Van #2 was now Van #1 and vice versa). This meant that

When I turned sixty-five I qualified for the Boston Marathon. That was also the year I retired from teaching at St Thomas University and was invited to teach for a few months at the University of Wenzhou in southern China. Training over there was an interesting experience! Running on the roads or sidewalks was usually out of the question. Maybe because of population density the polite distance between two Chinese in that city was about five inches. Leaving a gap bigger than t